Cleaning crushed coral gravel

[lamaseta17]

how many times a month should i clean my crushed coral gravel and when i clean it do i move my live rock to clean under it? and is it harmful to let algae grow all over the back tank because i like the purple looking algae?

 

[ryshark]

I clean mine at least once a month by vacuuming it. I do not move any rocks. I also have a shallow bed of cc. its not very deep at all. I have read somewhere that if it is deep, then you need to stir it too, otherwise it traps too much stuff which becomes bad.
I have been doing that practice for 8-months with no problems.
It is not harmful to let the purple coraline algae grow on the back of the tank. I personally scrape it off the glass in my tank, but its not bad. Its actually a sign of a good balanced system.

 

[Ziggy953]

Welcome to AA!!

Is this a FOLWLR Tank or a reef you have?

How long has your tank been set up? What do you have in it right now?

I do not "clean" my substrate. There is a difference between a freshwater tank where you vac the gravel and a slatwater tank. Typically you want to leave your substrate alone let your clean up crew do the work. Crushed Coral is not the best choice for substrate because the particles are so large they tend to trap debris, food and waste and cause nitrates to go up. The only thing I do with my substrate is remove some of it every 4-5 months and replace it. This is mainly for looks. The biological filtration that is developed in your substrate is very important to keeping your tank in check. I have a medium deep sand bed and I only remove sand from the front area of the tank. I also have a refugium with a deep sand bed. If this is a new tank and you don't have any fish in it as yet you may want to consider removing the CC and going with a sandbed.

The purple (coraline algae) is a good thing. Some people like it on the back glass and others don't that is up to you.

 

[lamaseta17]

tank

well i have had my tank for about 6 months i have a wet/dry ehiem canister filter and a regular canister filter uv sterilizer air pump, one pump and 1 carpet anaome and a rose anenome only anenomes because i heard puffers dont go with coral i have 3 puffers 3 tangs 4 clown fish 2 damsel and snowflake eel i attached a pick let me know what i can fix up with the tank and how much more live rock do i need
man i wish i could have coral but i love my puffers

 

[Ziggy953]

Ok a few things.

1. What size tank is this? It looks like a 45 or so???
2. The tangs are going to be WAY too big for that tank especially the Sailfin (12+" full grown) The Eel is going to be 24"+ full grown
3. What kind of light do you have on this tank? RBTAs and other anemones require high lighting.

From what I'm seeing in the pics your tank is overloaded and that is going to cause you a lot of problems and very quickly. Anemones need very stable water conditions, excellent lighting and a very established tank. A tank that is only 6 months old should have maybe 2 fish in it and no corals or anemones.

Now with that said (not trying to bash you) what I would suggest is to take back several of your fish, or give them to someone with a larger tank. I can see in the pics that you have some algae growing and your tank looks a little cloudy. How often are you doing water changes? How often are you changing the carbon in your filter? The air pump I assume has a bubble wand or air stone attached to it? That is not needed in a SW tank, it kinda turns your tank into a giant skimmer. Bubble wands and air stones are more for FW tanks. Really the best thing you can do is to get most of those fish out of there or get a much larger tank (most of the fish you have selected need tanks 120g+) that is going to lessen the likely hood of a crash.

How often do you test your water for ammonia? With that heavy of a bio load I expect you have ammonia in your tank. As for the amount of liverock you want 1.5 to 2lbs per gallon for good filtration.

Sorry to sound like I'm yelling or being mean but you are way overloaded and it is going to cause you a lot of headache if it hasn't already.

 

[lamaseta17]

ziggy i dont know if your advice will change but my tank is 110 gallon and i got my lights from ebay these are the light info
[FONT=verdana,arial]Product Specification
• Light fixture (Approx. 48“x 15“x 3“)
• Support: 2x 250W DE HQI, 4x 65W Compact Fluorescent, 6x Dual
Bluemoon LED
• Non corrosive powder coated aluminum housing
• External HQI Ballast
• Internal Compact Fluorescent Ballast
• Built-in Cooling Fan
• Tempered glass lens and acrylic lens
• Individual power cords and on/off switches
• Made in China
wow im a rookie i got so excited and ought every fish i saw thanks for being so blunt and i never new about the bubles thanks.and my carbon(chemipure) embarresed to say i ony have changed it once and i change 10gallons of water every 3 weeks.
my ammonia is preety good all the time it always comes out yellow on the test which is 0.
alo i really dont know how much pounds of rock i really have what should i do about that.
wow you have been a great help please let me know more with the extra information i gave you,, cant wait to hear from a pro lol
[/FONT]

 

[Ziggy953]

Carbon should be changed out every week on a SW tank. After a week it really isn't doing much for you. With the bio load you have in your tank you need to be doing 25%+ PWCs every other week. If you have sponges in your filtration they should be cleaned out every week as well. The puffers and the eel are messy fish and can foul a tank very quickly a skimmer would be a good idea to add to your tank!

I stick with what I said above about taking back or giving away several of those fish. You may be doing "ok" right now but I can see a lot of issues coming up very quickly in your tank. The problem is with that many fish in such a small space you are going to have issues and they are going to happen very quickly.

My tank is 3 years old and I don't have anywhere near that many fish in it.

1st do larger more frequent PWCs
2nd Change your filter media once a week
3rd take back 2 puffers, 2 of those tangs 2 of the clowns and you will be in a better position to deal with the tank in the very near future.

As a side note generally tangs should be kept in a tank that is 5' or longer, they swim around a lot and they really need lots of LR to graze on. Get a skimmer something that is rated for 150g or better.

Your lights are fine